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By TNH Staff December 9, 2019

Hooded protesters use an aim laser pointer to riot police during minor clashes in Athens, Friday, Dec. 6, 2019. Thousands of protesters in Greece have joined marches in the nation's capital and other cities to mark the anniversary of the fatal police shooting of a teenager that sparked extensive rioting 11 years ago. (AP Photo/Yorgos Karahalis)

ATHENS A Greek police crackdown on violence and lawlessness, especially in the anarchist-dominated neighborhood of Exarchia is being orchestrated by the New Democracy government to get back at the Radical Left SYRIZA it ousted in July 7 snap elections, officials in the defeated party claimed.

That came in a report in TRT World, a Turkish state-run international channel after clashes in Athens on the Dec. 6 anniversary of the 2008 killing of 15-year-old Alexis Grigoropoulos, who was shot dead by a police officer in Exarchia.

SYRIZA and Amnesty International accused the government of emboldening police brutality with the Leftists claiming some demonstrators were beaten and roughly treated even as police said they were being pummeled with objects.

SYRIZAs Dimitris Papadimoulis, a Member of the European Parliament, said that he planned to internationalize the issue and accused New Democracy of taking revenge on leftists and other activists opposed to its policies.

The new government is trying to hit first the young people, Giorgos Papanikoulaou, a 25-year-old left-wing student activist, told TRT World. They are trying to put a police state in every aspect of our lives.

The government had also sent in squadrons of police to rid the neighborhood of drug dealers and empty abandoned buildings of squatters, many of them refugees and migrants, trying to restore law and order.

There were battles in the street with anarchists breaking stones to toss at police, setting rubbish mounds on fire and rampaging in Athens, as well as the countrys second-and-third largest cities of Thessaloniki and Patras, leaving two injured and dozens detained.

Videos emerged showing riot police officers stomping, dragging and cursing demonstrators they had detained with a 20-year-old woman saying she was hit in the head with a police baton although she wasnt involved in the protests.The Ministry of Citizens Protection established a new committee to monitor allegations of police violence, a five-member panel that will investigate claims submitted regarding police brutality reports.

After the Dec. 6 clashes, the Hellenic Police announced that it had sent videos and photographs to the new committee in order for an investigation to be carried out.

At the same time, citizens who have relevant material or are witnesses or believe they have been subjected to violence in similar cases are invited to report to the aforementioned Ombudsman investigation mechanism, read a statement released after the incidents.

Many New Democracy lawmakers backed the police and the partys stance against lawlessness it said was tolerated and even encouraged by SYRIZA, which is riddled with anarchist and terrorist sympathizers.

Konstantinos Bogdanos, a New Democracy lawmaker, tweeted that the police crackdown demonstrates what it means to have a state at last, saying elements in SYRIZA had condoned lawlessness.

Leaving all other issues aside, there is a fundamental paradox in the policies of New Democracy, Alexis Charitsis, a SYRIZA spokesperson, told TRT World about the Conservatives.

The law and order agenda is not targeting big financial interests that are associated with corruption and organised crime. This discrepancy reveals the true nature of the law and order governmental rhetoric, he said.

Read the rest here:
SYRIZA Says New Democracy Using Cops to Get Revenge - The National Herald